Layouts of modern keyboards: Am I crazy?

Hey everyone,

At work (software dev shop) I was tasked to find a successor to the Logitech K800 wireless keyboard, which has a fairly standard layout with separated function key groups, print screen and all the jazz.

Here it is:

Personally I always hated that they moved the context menu button to the Fn layer since I use that button a lot.

I then started looking at the Logitech MX Keys which has most of the bells and whistles, sporting a pleasing aesthetic:

Every review I’ve seen praises the look and the feel and a bunch of other features but no one seems to talk about the glaring problem: The layout is batshit insane.

Apparent issues (mostly from a developer’s perspective):

  • The function keys have no separation making it near impossible to debug software without eyeballing. Debuggers typically use keys around F5 - F10.
  • Escape key is 2 units wide for no reason
  • Directly above backspace you find the volume up button and not F12 making it even harder to determine which F key your fat fingers are hitting
  • ScrollLock seems to be gone in favor of “switch computer connection” hotkeys
  • PrintScreen has been moved to the top right above the numpad
  • No NumLock indicator
  • Pause button gone? This one is less of an issue, but it does come in handy if you have old software

Function keys are still widely used by developer tools, productivity tools and hell even Excel and these compact-but-not-really layouts are frankly insulting to their target audience.

So my questions to you all is:

  • Why isn’t anyone talking about this?
  • What other keyboards can people recommend that have sane layouts, are silent, low profile-ish and preferably wireless?
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Here is a good alternative:

It has a standard ANSI layout, has a red linear switch option (for silent operation), low profile (for a mechanical switch), and has bluetooth option.

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I just created an account to suggest Cherry Stream Desktop keyboards, they do all of this and are really nice to type on.

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Welcome to the forum!

Cherry switches uses a CHERRY SX scissor mechanism which I havent encoured yet. For 26 USD I think it is a good buy and I am curious!

I have a cheapo generic Dell keyboard with low profile chiclet/rubber dome type of switch and it gets the job done but it feels very mushy…

EDIT: you made me go through a rabbit hole with a certain Cherry MX-LP compact low profile keyboard with a 100M rated keyswitch lifetime! It may not be OP’s thing but it is curious keyboard!

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I use an MX Keys at home and in the office. I’ve been pleased with it honestly, I run an MSP so doing that workload and programming. I haven’t had a single issue with the layout so that is why I don’t talk about it lol

Thanks!

The wireless models are quite a lot more than that, I paid about £80. That includes a mouse that I didn’t really want but they didn’t sell the “Cherry Desktop Stream Recharge” without it.

It feels like a very nice laptop keyboard, I have an old T430 and I’d say it’s even better than that to type on. It’s more tactile, and the little noise it does make just sounds better. Plus it’s a full sized layout, not really a fan of compact keyboards although that Cherry MX-LP you linked to looks really good!

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Do you use your function keys a lot?

Probably more than the standard user, but I can function without them as well if needed.

I ran out and bought the wired TKL version to test and for €36 it’s performing great.

Initial impressions:

  • The keys have a sharp tactility, very uniform actuation when pressed off-center.
  • Weight is around 600g (~1 pound?) which isn’t a lot but enough for it to not feel cheap
  • Bottom out weight is somewhat heavier than the MX keys and my ThinkPad

This is a very fine keyboard, thanks for the suggestion!

@sprung How does the weight of the wireless version feel?

@ZebraOverlords How long did it take you to get used to it?

@regulareel Thanks for the link. It looks very nice but seems to be MIA in Denmark, my country of residence.

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IDK a couple minutes after I got it. It quickly became my favorite keyboard and I often travel with a 10 key-less version over my Thinkpad design keyboards from the Lenovo era and IBM era.

I have been actually impressed with battery life using both Bluetooth and the USB receiver.

The wireless 105 key Cherry Stream is 920 grams including 2 x AAA batteries. Pretty heavy considering how thin it is.

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@sprung very nice indeed.

@ZebraOverlords Quite fast I must say.

I’ll order some full size Cherry Stream and see what my peers think of it, thanks for the help everyone.

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If the Cherry is not the right fit, I will 2nd the Keychron low profile keyboards. I have a regular K4v2, and a K7 and both are amazing.

Why are so many people so “gung ho” about wireless keyboards? Is there actually a productivity use for not having a wired keyboard?

most of the time its laptop users who dont have a thunderbolt dock and dont realize how much better life is with one.

I am considering getting a wireless keyboard and mouse to reduce cable clutter on my desk. Also, sometimes I am bedridden (I have a chronic illness that I fall victim to 4 times a year, which requires me to stay in bed for three days each time.) it would make my work life better if I had a wireless keyboard and mouse. I have tried different laptops, but a laptop isn’t powerful enough to run my workloads. I thought I would add there are other reasons than the lack of thunderbolt on most laptops for having wireless equipment.

So that you can type stuff on other devices like cellphones and tablets other devices with bluetooth receivers such as laptops and maybe desktop as well if you have built-in motherboard wireless support or have a bluetooth dongle. One keyboard to rule them all. Having a clean asthetic like @Shadowbane said also helps.

FPS and other latency sensitive games would not be happy if you are using a bluetooth receivers though. Its the slowest of the bunch, especially if you have a wired and a 2.4GHz wireless option (like the Xbox controller and some gaming mice).

Bluetooth can be very finnicky so I wouldn’t use it as my primary input device.
If you have USB OTG you can usually connect a dongle or even a wired keyboard.

On another note:
I let a couple of people try the Cherry Stream and the consensus seems to be that it’s the right choice over the Logitech. Reasons include space bar width, weird placement of keys. Nice to know I am not totally insane :slight_smile:

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It is an option. Say you needed 3 USB cables and left 2 of them, at least you can connect devices with BT capabilities

But the thing about the Model M layout’s function keys is that they’ve never been much good for unsighted use, and they probably weren’t intended to be used unsighted. Their position up top, with lots of vertical space from the number keys and horizontal space between the three groups of four F keys, is almost certainly partly meant to make it easier to fit a keyboard template or overlay around them, and of course a template overlay only does something useful when you’re looking at the keyboard. Putting them up top was certainly meant to harmonise better with certain old DOS programs which would display the key bindings for the F keys in an ordered list on the bottom of the screen. (See this old interview.) And that only provides a benefit for users who go from seeing the F key binding on the bottom of the screen to trying to find that F key on the keyboard with their eyes: effectively it makes the bottom menu function as a dynamic keyboard template. (It’s also notably similar to how Apple’s Touch Bar works.)

(In fact even early versions of the Apple Lisa UI (the UI that largely became the Macintosh’s) were going for that kind of “soft-key” input, as Bill Atkinson’s surviving Polaroids show! Cropping a couple of the images just to show Polaroids of screens with softkeys:

polaroid 7 cropped for softkeys menu
polaroid 8 cropped for softkeys menu )

If the main objective was to make the F keys easy to use by touch then maybe the best option would be something like the old XT or AT layout’s two-wide column of F keys just to the left of the “alphanumeric cluster”. And in fact it seems likely that a significant number of people were unhappy about the Model M’s decision to move the F keys for just that reason. As it is, I think the FX Keys’ layout probably makes using the F keys better rather than worse for unsighted use, on the whole, at least for touch-typists who have had time to get used to it. Any row of keys three layers above the home row is never going to be ideal for speed and accuracy, but at least there’s no extra vertical space to make that problem worse. (Further, lots of people already have experience of dealing with an F-key top row with no extra separation, since that’s what most laptops have had for a long time.)

In fairness, you have start by asking: whose fault is that? The Macintosh (basically) replaced F keys with modifier(s)+alphanumeric key combinations. Those are worse in some ways than F-key bindings: you certainly can’t use a template card to make those combinations discoverable by looking at the keyboard in the same way you can for F-key bindings. But if what you care about is inputting commands you already know well quickly and without looking at the keyboard then they’re dramatically better than F-key bindings (badly-placed top-row F keys, in particular). The Mac came out in 1984; the first edition of the Macintosh Human Interface Guide was published in 1987; Windows 3.0 came out in 1990 and Win95 in '95, and they basically followed the Macintosh in this respect. Then Gnome and KDE followed suit in the late '90s. I don’t have to belabour the fact that all of this was a long time ago. If some of these commands still don’t have modifier+alpha bindings in some apps … ?!

But we are where we are, and it’s fair to say that we and Logitech both have to take it as a given that some apps still have important commands with F-key bindings but no modifier(s)+alphanum bindings. For those who can touch-type, probably the best way to make those inputs is using an Fn key which remaps some alphanumberic keys for the other hand to F1-F12. I see that the Logi keyboard does have an Fn key, but I don’t know how it’s configured to work. For those who can’t touch-type, having twelve physical F keys is probably still justified. The best layout would still probably be a side layout not too different to the AT keyboard’s (though you need to find space to increase the number of F keys by two, and another horizontal cluster of keys will take away important desk space in the vicinity of the user’s hands, especially at the expense of left-handed mouse users). Having F keys on the top is probably still not as good, even though that latter is now more familiar. But I don’t think one can say that the Model-M-style separated F-key row is clearly better than the laptop-style integrated row.

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